Attempted kidnapper in Hopewell case sentenced to five years

Google MapsThe Clarkson S. Fisher Building and U.S. Courthouse on East State Street in Trenton.

TRENTON -- A Southampton, Pa. man was sentenced to five years in prison today for attempting to hire a team of white supremacists to kidnap a woman who works in Hopewell Township and her young child in 2010.

Jayen I. Patel, 41, pleaded guilty earlier this year to soliciting for assistance with a kidnapping. Patel was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Freda L. Wolfson to five years in prison followed by a three-year supervised release.

Patel was arrested last fall at an office he had rented in a Princeton Township. He later admitted to using an online social networking site to solicit someone he thought was a white supremacist to kidnap the woman and child, claiming that the child's father wanted custody. Patel did not know that the person he had contacted was an undercover FBI agent.

Patel wanted the man to gather a group of friends to kidnap the mother and daughter and return the child to her father. In an email, Patel allegedly advised the would-be kidnapper to handcuff the woman and knock her out if she refused to cooperate. The man was to be paid once Patel secured access to the woman's bank account.

In addition to money, Patel promised that, as a bonus, the group would be allowed to keep the woman as a slave when the job was done, according to court documents.

Authorities said Patel hatched his plot via online chats held from a Verizon store in Monmouth Junction where he worked, and from a laptop computer used in a rented space in the Regus building at the Princeton Overlook Center.

Authorities did not say where the would-be victim and her child lived, but at the FBI's request Hopewell Township detectives provided extra security at the woman's place of employment.